"What is psychedelic music???"

WCC otm. it also makes reference to weed, and reflects a generally psychedelicized consciousness. the only ways in which it might not seem psychedelic are that A) it doesn't owe much of anything, sonically, to the established psychedelic rock genre, and B) it isn't terribly abstract. its consciousness is never allowed to really drift.

True psychedelic music, for me, tends to be a production aesthetic that combines things things that are both incredibly subtle with things that are ridiculously overplayed (usually aspects of the music you wouldn't normally expect to be subtle/overplayed) to create an unbalanced feel. Hallmarks of psychedelic music for me include: simultaneous extreme use of dry sound and wet sound (reverb/echo/delay/phasing/flanging) and interesting use of the stereo field (instruments and the effects printed onto them panned into places where the ear would not naturally expect them to be, or instruments being autopanned all over the place throughout the course of a track). Back-masking instruments and voices also seems to be a popular psychedelic cliche.

A lot of '60s psychedelic music tends to use exotic instruments and interesting use of tape-loops, although these aren't really necessary to create psychedelic music. For me, the ultimate goal is to create something that feels simultaneously natural and unnatural and creates a sense of confusion, whether it's a mild, subtle confusion or taking it to an extreme.

well, like a lot of psychedelic music, paul's boutique sounds like it was made by people who'd spent some time tripping (and were deliberately letting that color their art). tripping people do of course like listening to it, but man, those fuckers will listen to the bathroom fan, so...

Hmm. I've always felt that psychedelic music was meant to make the listener feel like they were tripping without needing to do any hallucinogenics, myself. Sitting in a confined space listening to psychedelic music while tripping sounds like my idea of a real lousy time!

I'm listening to Verve's A Storm In Heaven right now, and 'Beautiful Mind' came on. I would call this particular track (indeed, most of the album) 'psychedelic', because its rhythm section is so god damn subtle, but on top of it are just the most heavily-reverbed and effected vocals and guitar lines. Having said that, I'd say 'Make It 'Til Monday' is probably the most 'psychedelic' moment of the album.